In vain for me the landscape charms, Not nature's smile my sorrow calms. H. SECOND EPODE OF HORACE BLEST is the swain, who, far from strife, And busy cares of city life, Lives as they liv'd in days of old, And right divide from neighbours' grounds. Now in the shade he loves to pass His leisure on the matted grass: While down the banks the streamlet flows, And these his golden dreams prolong. Amid such joys, what power has love Divide with him the cares of life; May manage well the household care, (Should Eastern tempests waft them o'er, Nor Africk fowl, nor costly bird, His taste more pleasure would afford, Than unctuous olives of the field, And shards, which health and vigour yield; Than lambkins on a festal day, Or prowling wolfine's rescued prey. Amid the feast, 'tis his delight, To see his wellfed flocks at night; Or see his oxen toiling slow, Draw through the glebe the sluggish plough ; Around the hearth to view his hinds With rustic mirth refresh their minds. Thus Alphius, the usurer spake, Butere a fortnight let it out again. K. HOPE AND DOUBT. WHEN Love, the wily, soft deluder, Shares with Hope a joint control. Buoyant Hope, life's vivid painter, Now to fancy spreads the future, Gently whispers to the Lover, But when Doubt, with sable pinion, Life seems then a painted bubble, Faith and truth the price of gold; Nothing sure but care and trouble, Friends are false, and love grows cold! Then the eye, bedimm'd though tearless, Then the bosom, cold and cheerless, Thus when Zephyr's balmy breezes Waken April's tender bands, Again his power if Boreas seizes, None escape his tyrant hands. CARE AND LOVE. GAY Love one morning, breathing sweets, With flowers and myrtle's flaunting, Encountering Care in Hymen's streets, Thus spake in accents taunting. "Why do you damp the glowing mind ? 'Tis your attempt to loose them. When I the cheek with roses strew, When I give life its sweetest charm, And mar what 1 embellish." "Peace," answer'd Care, "your taunts forege, Truth frowns at your perversion, When fortune smiles you give delight, While I extend my guardian powers But for my aid your wreaths of flowers Cease then, and we'll our efforts join, To increase and guard life's treasure, The task to shield from ills be mine, Be yours to heighten pleasure." THE BOSTON REVIEW, FOR JUNE, 1810. Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potu: annotavi quae commutanda, quae extenda arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam Plin. qui maxime laudari merentur. ARTICLE 15. Lectures on the Evidences of the Christian Religion, delivered to the senior class, on Sundays, in the afternoon, in the College of New Jersey. By the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. President of the College. Philadelphia; Fry and Kammerer. 12mo. pp. 408. 1809. THE Lectures of Dr. Smith contain a perspicuous account of some of the principal arguments in favour of Christianity, written in a style of more than common purity and neatness. They are, however, rather a series of dissertations on different branches of the evidences, and on matters of inquiry relating to these, than a connected view of the whole subject. The two first Lectures are occupied in shewing "the necessity of a revelation," and this from three considerations. "The necessity of a revelation may be inferred from the extreme ignorance, and even the monstrous errours with regard to the being of God, and to the nature of the worship which he requires, as well as with regard to a future existence, which prevailed almost universally among mankind at the period of the birth of Christ; it may be inferred from the extreme and universal depravation of morals, which the lights of nature and the aids of reason had become utterly impotent to remedy: And, finally, it may be inferred from the incapacity of the unaided powers of the human mind, satisfactorily to determine, if mercy will, or can, in consistency with the justice of God, and the purity of the divine nature, be extended to the guilty." We shall insert from what immediately follows, and from the next lecture, the view which is given of the state of religion and morals at the time of the introduction of Christianity, and of the effect which this has produced. |